Preparing the path for students' active engagement in Global learning

The EAThink Kit, included in the European project eathink 2015,  is a working tool including the best Global Learning Units for Primary and Secondary school teachers, global education trainers and volunteers engaged in educational activities on global learning and sustainable agriculture. You can download the different Kits developed by the EAThink partners in several languages, Basque included. 

Below the language section, you will find a series of very useful tags that you can use to search for the units that you may prefer depending on the subject you teach (Biology, Chemistry, Economics, Ethics, etc.)

In 2015,  “Eat local, think global” was the motto this three-year EU funded project chose to prepare students for facing their responsibilities as active global citizens, starting from the choice of what they eat.

Far from bidding farewell to this powerful project in 2018, you can start welcoming it into your schools if you have not known about it till now because it is being constantly updated. In fact, just some days ago I knew about a new series of activities that will be launched in 2018-2019 at Primary and Secondary schools in the Basque Country. You can find everything about the workshops and activities Euskalfondoa has organized here.

If you wish to use the classroom units in Basque, just click here. Classroom resources in Spanish can be downloaded here. Regarding the units in English, this is the link to download them.

There is no doubt that these superb resources will help educators to enhance students’ critical understanding of and active engagement in global development challenges, focusing on sustainable food systems and smallholder farming.

Youth citizen entrepreneurship competition

      
                         

Encourage your students to participate in the UNESCO Youth Citizen Entrepreneurship Competition.  In their own words, young people aged 15+ can demonstrate all their STEAMS (Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, Mathematics, Sports) skills by submitting their innovative ideas and projects with a societal impact, which champion and implement one or more of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDG’s). The 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and 169 related targets address the most important social, economic, environmental, health and governance challenges of our time.

First of all, register and create an account.  If you have an innovative idea on one of the  17 SDGs, you can send your entry until the entry deadline (31 July 2017).  You may also support your entry by submitting a video presentation of your idea or project (up to 3 minutes).

Entries will be posted on the competition website and are subject to online commenting and public voting. From among the finalists, the judges will make the final selection of three winners (Grand Prize, 2nd Prize and 3rd Prize) in each category.

Entries will be evaluated based on their entrepreneurial vision, feasibility,   innovation, leadership, social impact, and sustainability, among other factors.

The People's Choice Prize will be given to the entry with the largest number of votes in each of  the two categories.

In addition, an Entrepreneurship Campus Prize will be given to three entrants who have  demonstrated outstanding ‘entrepreneurship spirit’ by actively taking part in the Entrepreneurship  Campus.

I reckon this is a great opportunity to  empower young entrepreneurs to create a sustainable world so I would like to thank Stiftung Entrepreneurship and Goi Peace Foundation for organizing this competition. Good luck to all the young entrepreneurs ready to take part in it!

International Women's Day

In July 2010, the United Nations General Assembly created UN Women, the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women. In doing so, UN Member States took a historic step in accelerating the Organization’s goals on gender equality and the empowerment of women. Over many decades, the UN has made significant progress in advancing gender equality and on every March 8th they focus on a theme to keep on advancing towards achieving gender equality. 

The theme for International Women’s Day, 8 March, 2017, focuses on “Women in the Changing World of Work: Planet 50-50 by 2030”. The website is, as usual, a superb source for educators but I would like to recommend the section called "From where I stand", a collection of stories of women around the world who are bringing real change regarding gender equality.

I wanted to contribute to the celebration of March 8th in our classrooms through a lesson plan based on a film. Why? I would say that sometimes the names and deeds of the heroes in  films are known to all. However,  there are those films that shine the spotlight on those whose names were known to only a few, but whose stories deserve to be told. This is the case with "Hidden figures", which tells the story of a team of African-American women mathematicians who served a vital role in NASA during the early years of the US space program.

One of these women,  98-year-old Katherine Johnson,  is a true hero who was totally hidden until this film was released and I would like to pay my humble tribute to her and to all hidden women whose deeds should be known to all. The starting point of the lesson I have developed is Katherine's biography  but let me suggest using the uplifting Gospel song from the film as a warm-up:

If you wish, you can ask students to carry out a  fill in the gaps activity while they listen to the song. The complete version of the lyrics can be downloaded from here.

After listening to the song you will have created the environment to start this lesson plan on "Empowering Women in the changing world of work".

I hope my proposal will help your students to reflect on the need for gender equality regarding acknowledgement of work achievement. 


Downloadable resources for the lesson plan:

Handout for the student: Katherine's biography

Handout for the teacher: Katherine Johnson's biography

Handout for the student: biography writing frame

Handout for the student: feedback on peers'  presentations

Handout for the teacher: oral presentation rubrics for a biography

Handout for the student: listening activity

MULTICULTURAL SCHOOLS PROJECT

Multicultural classrooms are a growing phenomenon as migrants flows are increasing exponentially. Classrooms now host students from  diverse nationalities and cultures and  teachers have  to acquire new skills, competences and materials to work effectively with culturally diverse students. 

Multicultural Schools project is a valuable bank of resources that will help all of  you who want to foster integration among different cultures and languages within your classrooms. 

The repository will give you free access  different types of ready-to-use materials for students of both Primary and Secondary levels. The materials are available in six different languages corresponding to the partner countries taking part in the project. 

I would like to suggest making students  listen to  and watch Marla Lewis' wonderful song and video "We all laugh in the same language"  as a way to celebrate unity within diversity in our multicultural school contexts:



You can download the lyrics of the song here. 

Please remember that the partners who are taking part in this project need our feedback to keep on working on the project and improving it. Therefore, let me know about your classroom experience after putting some activities into practice with your students.

Finally, but no less importantly, thank you very much for your immeasurable support towards cultural integration in our classrooms. 

International Day for the elimination of violence against women November 25th 2016

Even though decades of mobilizing by civil society and women’s movements have put ending gender-based violence high on national and international agendas, not enough is done to prevent violence as we still witness  too many cases of domestic violence, sexual assault and other forms of violence. From these lines I would like to suggest some activities and lesson plans which can help us to arise awareness on the topic in our classrooms. 

The first classroom proposal  I would like to suggest is based on an empowerment song by Katy Perry called "Roar": 

You can find some activities I have developed to work on this song here. The lyrics of the song can be downloaded from this link.

My second proposal is based on the huge impact celebrities have on our students. Therefore,  we can choose some celebrities that have taken a stand and support the cause to end violence against women. You can ask them to read this handout in pairs and vote for their favourite. Then, in groups of four they will have to reach an agreement and later report to the rest of the students giving reasons for their choice. 

If you like quotations, you can make students read  the ones here , which were said by famous people belonging to different fields in life. Ask them to work in pairs and print their favourite one  on a sticky note. You can find an easy tutorial that describes how to print onto sticky notes directly from your computer. Students can then leave inspiring quotes either created by them or said by a celebrity they admire  around the school. 

If you wish to develop a deeper approach on the topic, this lesson plan  from Amnesty  International is a very good option since it offers a range of activities for use in different curriculum areas  for 11-18 year old students. 

I hope that our classroom practice on November 25th can  contribute  to a faster solution to the  social scourge of violence against women. 

MARCH 8th 2016: INTERNATIONAL WOMEN'S DAY

The 2016 theme for International Women’s Day is “Planet 50-50 by 2030: Step It Up for Gender Equality”.

The United Nations observance on 8 March will reflect on how to accelerate the 2030 Agenda, building momentum for the effective implementation of the new Sustainable Development Goals. It will equally focus on new commitments under UN Women’s Step It Up initiative, and other existing commitments on gender equality,  women’s empowerment and women’s human rights.

How can we step it up? In my view, there are very simple and effective ways in which we can help our teenagers to build the emotional skills for healthy relationships based on equality, respect and trust. Allow me to contribute by sharing with you a  simple lesson plan that you can carry out based on The Hunger Games. 

I hope that by incorporating activities that foster  classroom discussion on the topic, you will succeed at  raising students' awareness of the fact that everyone has a role to play to make gender equality a true reality by 2030.

HUMAN RIGHTS DAY 10 DECEMBER 2015

Human Rights Day is observed every year on 10 December. It commemorates the day on which, in 1948, the United Nations General Assembly adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. 

Many years have passed and unfortunately there is still a long way ahead to guarantee the fundamental freedoms and protect the human rights of all. However, it also has to be said that  there are many organisms and individuals who are working hard to collaborate to protect human rights. Today I would like to write about one of these individuals. Her name is  Benedetta Berti.  She  is  a foreign policy and security researcher, analyst, consultant, author and lecturer. Her work focuses on human security and internal conflicts, as well as on post-conflict stabilization/consolidation (specifically integration of armed groups, democracy/governance and crisis management and prevention).

Today I would like to share one of her video lessons  to start analyzing the complexity of this issue with students. In less than five minutes, Benedetta offers an accurate insight into the limits of the current mechanisms that aim at protecting human rights. She also highlights the need to  update the existing mechanisms if we want to preserve human rights  in the current digital world we live in. 

Therefore, I reckon it would be worthwhile spending five minutes on viewing the video above with students and I suggest  fostering  students'  discussion after viewing it. I hope you will find this lesson plan useful.  

My second proposal for classroom use  is based on  "Blowing in the wind" by Bob Dylan. Composed in 1963, its message is very much alive in 2015. The song includes a string  of provoking questions to make us aware of the fact that the largest cause of human rights violations is mental disconnection  from the reality that affects others: "how many times can a man turn his head, and pretend that he just doesn't see?" 

You can find a simple activity to carry out while students listen to the song here.

Finally, I would like to suggest some other sources that include plenty of resources for classroom use: 

United Nations 

Youth for Human Rights International 

Oxfam International

International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women. November 25 2015

Prevention is the 2015 theme  of the International Day for the Elimination of violence against women  on 25 November and of the UNiTE to End Violence against Women Campaign’s 16 days call for action. You can see more at: www.unwomen.org. The United Nations Secretary-General’s Campaign UNiTE to End Violence against Women invites you to "Orange the world: end violence against women and girls".  We have sixteen days (since November 25th till December 10th) to collaborate by using the toolkit and sharing our photos, messages and videos showing how we can  orange our world at facebook.com using #orangetheworld.

I would  also like to tell you about  www.plan-uk.org,  a webpage with plenty of resources  that you can use to raise students' awareness of the need to fight for a world in which girls and women can live safe from violence, go to school without fear, marry who they want and have their voices heard.

As I  focus my councelling in school contexts and as most of my readers work in school contexts too, I have chosen a resource that fosters reflection on  how violence  against girls can take place  in or around schools. You can find it here. 

The following video can serve as a starting point:

My humble contribution to this campaign of prevention outlined above can very well include a song because I cannot agree more with Hans Christian Andersen when he said that  "where words fail, music speaks".  On this occasion, my choice is "Try", by American singer Colbie Caillat. I consider this is an empowering  song because I believe that the best prevention starts by making young girls understand that they do not have to be someone else in order to make others happy. The lyrics convey this message very effectively. I hope your students will enjoy the song as much as I do. If you wish, you can carry out  an activity on it. 

International Women's Day 2015

20 years have passed since 17,000 participants and 30,000 activists streamed into Beijing for the opening of the Fourth World Conference on Women in September 1995.They were remarkably diverse, coming from around the globe, but they had a single purpose in mind: gender equality and the empowerment of all women, everywhere. By the time the conference closed, it had produced the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action, the most progressive blueprint ever for advancing women’s rights. As a defining framework for change, the Platform for Action made comprehensive commitments under 12 critical areas of concern. Even 20 years later, it remains a powerful source of guidance and inspiration.

The following video can be an excellent introduction to a series of sessions to celebrate International Women's Day 2015:

After viewing this video, you can proceed with a text on International Women's Day and some activities on it. Choose the ones that best fit your school context  from the lesson plan you can get here.

If you have the chance to spend some sessions on the topic, this is a nice webquest on "Important women in the world". It is aimed at making students aware of the important work different women belonging to different work areas have carried out. You can adapt it and include other women if you think other choices may be more successful with your students. 

For those of you who share my passion for music as a means to create the proper atmosphere and convey powerful messages,  I have two proposals: the first one is Gloria Gaynor's "I will survive". Even though it was released in 1978, it has remained a true pop music anthem that highlights women's strength. You can download the lyrics here  and this is a worksheet you can use with your students.

My  second proposal is "A woman's worth". This was Alicia Key's second single. In this song, she wrote about self-esteem, and being worthy of the kindness of others. Keys feels it can relate to a man or a woman  so I reckon it is  very suitable for our students  because they can  listen to a song that describes what good relations should be like.

The video was shot in Brooklyn, near where she grew up:

The lyrics of the song offer a great opportunity to convey the powerful message of relations based on respect and equality. Precisely because the message is so powerful, I decided to forget about grammar objectives such as the first conditional or modal verbs and to offer students some activities which would enable them to fully understand the meaning of words and sentences in the song. That's why I developed  this worksheet. 

I hope that the proposals above will contribute to step up our efforts to foster gender equality in our classes  

International Day for Human Rights on December 10th

Amnesty International is a global movement of more than 7 million people who campaign for a world where human rights are enjoyed by all.  The website displays  lots of resources for the classroom in different languages but today I would like to recommend a  human rights cross-curricular teaching resource for secondary schools. It contains eight lesson plans  which  can be used separately or as part of  a series of carefully planned sessions  across the year. The accompanying CD-ROM contains all the resources together with short film clips and accompanying resources, which you can also order by filling in this form .

Right below you can find a short summary of each of the lesson plans and the links to access them:  

•  Lesson 1 - Understanding human rights: Introducing human rights with images, activities and a short film
• Lesson 2 - Human rights in the UK: Making the Human Rights Act come alive with real-life cases and a presentation activity
• Lesson 3 - Dying to give birth: Using key mathematical skills to assess maternal mortality in different countries
• Lesson 4 - Mi dia, y los derechos: Comparing the daily lives of students in the UK with young Spanish-speakers across the globe
• Lesson 5 - Freedom of expression: Exploring the right to free speech through film and text using key communication and critical thinking skills
• Lesson 6 - Refugees and asylum: Dramatic role play activity using a tru story to understand and empathise with asylum seekers and refugees
• Lesson 7 - The death penalty: Discussion and debate about the death penalty using global facts and a real case
• Lesson 8 - Taking action: A short film case study giving real-life context for developing campaigning skills.

The lessons plans provide you with power point presentations, resource sheets, video clips and teachers' notes. All of these resources can be downloaded for free and  you can also order the whole pack of lesson plans  by filling in this form.

Plenty of interesting topics  for you classroom in English, French and Spanish  may be found under the title "Thematic issues" on the United Nations website. Do not miss the special section they have prepared for  International Human Rights Day on December 10th

Last but not least, if you wish to work on language thoroughly, you will have a great opportunity to do so by downloading the lesson plan ESL Holiday Lessons offers here.

International Day for Elimination of Violence against Women

International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women is observed on November 25th because of a horrific historical event. On this day in 1960, three sisters were brutally killed in the Dominican Republic. The Mirabal sisters were political activists. They campaigned against Rafael Trujillo's dictatorship. Their brutal execution triggered the anti-Trujillo movement and within a year the Trujillo dicatorship came to an end. The sisters were referred to as the "Unforgettable Butterflies" and they have become a symbol against victimization of women. 

To raise awareness and trigger action to end the global scourge of violence against women and girls, the UN proposes 16 Days of Activism against gender Violence. Enter the UN website and choose among the many proposals the ones you find the most suitable for your students. 

A good way of starting could be this quiz to test your students' knowledge on this issue.

"In the words of"  is also a very interesting reading proposal because it features first-person articles written by celebrities, well-known personalities and women's wights activists. 

Last but not least, I reckon that  boys  could benefit from knowing about the heforshe campaign that was born to underline the role of  so many men who in recent years have started to stand up in addressing inequalities and discrimination faced by women.  Emma Watson's speech at the  UN Headquarters can be an excellent resource  to raise awareness of the need for boys and men's collaboration to fight gender inequality:

You can find the script of her speech here.

Finally, if you want a ready-to-use lesson plan that helps you to work on language while developing this topic, do not miss the proposal taken  from 
a great website with many lesson plans.  I have  downloaded it for you  so you can access it from here.

I hope that the ideas I have laid out above enable all of  us  to make our students  reflect upon the causes and consequences of gender inequality and, above all, teach them to respect the value of gender equality so that they are able to know a different reality in a near future.